1969
by notenoughlove
Summary: This is the second one shot for the Elizabeth and Jason get married in Vegas. Jason is Tom who is a sailor coming back from the Vietnam War. Elizabeth is Beth who is Tom's wife. Beth and the twins are driving from New York to California to pick up Tom and bring him back home. Tragedy strikes on the way to get Tom.


There are times in your life when you feel like something is going to happen to you. It could be good or bad but you just know that your life is not your own. Elizabeth and Jason had settled into a nice peaceful life. They had twins, Jake and Lila two years after they wed. Elizabeth was reading about a young mother and her children who were killed in a terrible car accident. It was very sad for her to read about the family but when she saw the pictures of the family that were killed a cold shiver went thru her. The paper she was looking at was from an old stack of her grandmother's papers. She had used them to wrap up some of her heirlooms in her attic. She had asked Elizabeth to get them down so she could show her. The wife was on her way to meet her husband who had been out to sea for the past year. She had two beautiful twins who were about four years old at the time. The year was 1969.

That night as she was tucking her children in bed she had a vision of the mother putting her own children to bed. She hadn't many dreams like that since she first met and fell in love with Jason. She was thinking it might just be stress or maybe she was coming down with something.

"Jason, remember when we use to have those dreams about each other? I think that I am starting them again but it came across in a different way. I was helping Grams get down some of her heirlooms that she wanted to give us and I found this newspaper clipping. It just made me so sad and then it was like a chill that went thru me. I just have a weird feeling that she is connected to us somehow." Jason hugged his wife and kissed her goodnight.

They both fell asleep and started to dream. Jason felt like he was floating back again in time when he was in the Navy. He looked at himself and realized that it wasn't him that was staring back at him. He was a young man and by the wedding ring on his hand that he was married. He saw a couple of the guys on board and they were getting excited because in the next day or so they would be pulling into San Francisco and able to see the loved ones again. He looked over at his locker and saw a picture of him and his wife, Beth. She was beautiful with long flowing blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. She was sitting with her two young twins sitting on her lap. They were beautiful. Their son was Jeff and daughter was Mandy. Mandy was a mess with her big blue eyes and curly blonde hair. Jeff had big blue eyes and sandy blonde hair. They both looked like their mother. She had written him a letter telling him that she was driving to California with their children to pick him up. She didn't want him to have to ride the bus to get back to Port Charles. She wanted to see him get off the ship. He cherished the photo of the three of them.

"Tom, are you sure that Beth is going to pick you up? We can bring you home to Port Charles. My wife has always wanted to see the east coast and that will be a great way for us to see the country." Tom's best friend, Mike was always ready for a road trip.

"Mike, I would take you up on that offer but she is already on her way here. I wanted her to stay home but she insisted. She wants to see me walk the plank. She is funny that way. Especially since this is my last tour and I get to go home for good." The two of them hung out for the rest of the day talking about their future plans.

Beth was packed and ready to see her husband. Her parents asked her one more time to stay home and let him take the bus from San Francisco. "Beth, please at least leave the children. Then you can spend a few days alone with your husband and you will be able to get a few days rest before the chaos starts again. They will be fine here with your father and myself."

"Mom, I love you but I promised the kids that they could go with me. I don't want to disappoint them just so I can have a few days alone with Tom. Although, we might let you have them for a weekend so we can take in a play in the city. I have been wanting to go to see a play on Broadway since before I had the twins. I just never had the time."

"Okay, you have yourself a babysitter. Just don't tell Tom's parents because they will try to take them from us." Beth laughed at her mother for that but knew that she was right about it. The grandparents were always trying to outdo the other when it came to the twins. Tom's mother wanted to go with me but I told her no. I would have my hands full enough with the twins and she would be harder to deal with then the twins on their worst day.

Her parents hugged her and the children making sure that everything was packed good and tight. The car that they were traveling in had been checked out and she had the tank filled and was ready to go. The trip was uneventful except when it came to finding a place to sleep that the two children would not act up in. They wanted to play and it was hard because of the cold weather and being stuck in the car all day long.

Beth was getting excited because she was on the last leg of her trip. She was almost finished going thru Nevada when the storm hit. The wind and snow was making almost impossible to see and being in the mountains it was getting dangerous. The problem was if she stopped for the night then she would miss him getting off the ship and he would think she wasn't coming to get him. The kids had fallen off to sleep so she could concentrate on the road and weather.

The ship was pulling into the harbor and all the young men were lined up looking at the pier that was before them. Tom was very excited because it had been too long since he saw his wife and children. The ship pulled up and was safely anchored to the pier. The wives, mothers and children were lined up on the pier looking for their loved ones. The men started to get off the ship. The families were being reunited with each other but Tom felt something was very wrong. He didn't see his family waiting for him. His friend Mike was walking down the gangplank into the arms of his awaiting wife, Cindy.

Cindy and Beth had met before and had become friends. They talked to each other at least once a week to get news about their men. She had received a phone call from Beth when she was staying at a hotel just before the Nevada line. She was excited because she was almost there.

Cindy looked at Tom. She didn't know what to say. Beth and the children should have been there the day before. They were planning to meet at the Fisherman's Wharf and hang out till the men came home.

"I spoke to her a few days ago. She was almost in Nevada and was excited to be here. The children were doing great and they were being well behaved for being stuck in a car as long as they had. I did hear that there was some bad weather to the west of us. She might have had to stay in a hotel somewhere to the weather cleared."

"It's okay. I can hang out here for a few days before heading back home. You two go on. I have your number if I need it. This is your time to be alone so go for it. If you hear from her please tell her that I am waiting for her." Cindy and Mike both gave Tom a hug. It would be the last time that they saw Tom.

The weather had gotten worse and Beth had tried to get into three different hotels but they were all booked up because of the weather. She had to keep going on. She was heading down one of the mountains when she heard a terrible noise. A semi was going down the mountain and had lost its brakes. The next thing Beth knew was the semi had hit their little car and their car was flying in the air going down the side of the mountain. The last thing she thought about was her two small children in the backseat and her husband waiting for her. All she could think about was how sorry she was that she let everyone down. "I love you Tom. I am so sorry. Good-bye."

Tom had gone to a nearby police station to tell them about his missing wife and children. The police asked if he knew the last spot she was known to be. His in-laws had talked to Beth a few days ago when she was trying to find a hotel due to a bad snow storm in the mountains. She told her parents that there wasn't any place for them to stay and that she had to keep going. Her mother had pleaded with her to just pull over somewhere and at least get some sleep. She told them she couldn't. The storm was bad and she was afraid that she would freeze to death if she stopped.

Tom didn't know why but he felt his heart break when his mother-in-law told him about what Beth had said to her mother. He knew that something bad had happened to his wife and children. The worst part was not knowing.

The driver of the rig was able to pull over to side but when he saw the car go over the side of the mountain he knew that there was no way for anyone to survive it. The driver went into town and told the local police about the accident. The police went to spot on the mountain where the car went off the side but could not spot the vehicle. The weather was still pretty bad so they had to wait till the next day to see if they could find the young family.

The first rescue unit took their snowmobiles up the side of the mountain. It didn't take long to find the crash site. The way it looked to the crew was the mother and children died instantly. They were able to bring the bodies back to the town. The police in San Francisco were able to get in touch with the police in Nevada. When the police told them who they were looking for they told them they had been found.

"Mr. Morgan, I am so sorry but the police in Nevada believe that your wife and children were killed in a car accident up there in the mountains. There was a semi following them when the brakes let go. The driver couldn't stop and hit the car which went off the side of the mountain. They were killed instantly. I am so sorry for your loss." Tom just looked at them and started to weep. He felt like they were gone but until he actually heard it he knew it was true. He went up to Nevada to claim the bodies of his wife and children. He brought them back to Port Charles to bury them. A few weeks later, they found him at the bottom of the gorge after taking off on his motorcycle.

Elizabeth and Jason woke up and hugged each other. They looked into each other eyes and knew that they were Beth and Tom. They also knew that they needed to keep this to themselves because no one would believe them.


End file.
